This is the full text of the letter I sent to The State News, part of which was published in the Friday 8 December 1995 edition.
Editor
The State News
Re: Domestic Partner Benefits
Dear Editor,
The issue isn't really domestic partner benefits, or even gay rights. The issue is whether MSU is in fact a diverse multicultural community in which all people are treated equally and fairly.
This isn't a hypothetical question. Go ask people. Print what you find out.
We are Michigan State University, but we are a university in the world. We have students, staff, and faculty here from many countries and cultures. We have research and outreach connections all over the planet and beyond. The people who have lived and grown and learned at MSU return to their communities and are shaping the twenty-first century. We should be leading the State of Michigan, not the other way around.
[The remainder was not printed.]
In regards to President McPherson and the Board of Trustees, I offer for thought a quote from the Declaration of Independence:
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms; our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Lisa Lees
Senior System Administrator
Department of Computer Science